


Sweet Sorrow

by Roselightfairy



Series: Finding a Voice [9]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bittersweet, Gen, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Old Age, Old Married Couple, Platonic Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 23:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16106408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy
Summary: Gimli and Legolas spend their last night in Ithilien.They will be missed.





	Sweet Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Oh good gracious. I'm hopping around in the chronology of this story like popcorn on a hot stove, and one of these days I'm going to get burned by it. But that day is not today, and so you have this.
> 
> I haven't figured out how I'm going to negotiate Valinor within this 'verse, so this might just end up being a little off in mood to what I end up writing, if I ever end up writing it. But like I said on Tumblr (for those of you who follow me there), I've been bored at work lately, and when the inspiration strikes, you have to go with it, I guess.
> 
> Also, there is Eleniel. Because unless something changes drastically in my sprawling headcanon... I don't think she's going to be sailing with them.

It was the last night they would ever spend in Ithilien, and Gimli woke with a start late into the night to find that Legolas had not yet come to bed.

He blinked bleary eyes, which never seemed to clear anymore the way he wished they would, until the darkness took on familiar, if blurred, lines. The nighttime noises here – the rustling of wind through branches and leaves, soft trickling of the running creek, and the humming of insects beneath it all – which had once disturbed his sleep had become a comforting background noise that he found he missed now – now that he could no longer hear it.

He sat up, stretching shoulders that twinged with a perpetual ache.  Legolas had said he wished to stay past the farewell meal and storytelling circle to talk awhile longer, and Gimli could hope even less now to match his husband’s tirelessness than ever before.  He had excused himself to bed, expecting that Legolas might come to him later than usual - it was only natural, on his last night with so many of his friends and kin.  But never before had he tarried this long.

Gimli groaned slightly as he rose, joints creaking as they settled into place.  A bit of a walk would do him no harm, and much as he had come to love Ithilien, he had little desire to spend his last night here alone.

His hand found the walking stick that he kept on his side of the bed, and he leaned on it to steady himself.  He had long resisted using one, until Legolas had given him this – carefully and exquisitely carved from the fallen wood of one of the trees that supported the walls of their home.  This way, he had said, it was a gift, and not a necessity.  And indeed, Gimli had come to treasure it, rather than resent it.

If, as they both hoped, he would no longer need it where they would journey, he would keep it gladly as a memory of their home in Ithilien.

He wrapped himself in Legolas’s fur-lined robe before leaving, protection against the chill of the night.  Then he wandered out into the darkness.

The fire where they had sat was yet burning, but only a few elves remained there.  As soon as they saw Gimli, they directed him with only a gesture toward the _talan_ where Eleniel lived.

He might have expected it, he supposed.  Still, Gimli’s heart sank – such climbing was one of the things his body no longer allowed him.  But he went where they indicated anyway, with a quick word of thanks.

As it happened, they had not climbed the tree.  In fact, Gimli nearly tripped over them where they lay, nestled together in a bed of moss on the ground.  They were curled toward each other like kittens against their mother’s belly, foreheads touching and fingers interlaced.  They did not speak, and indeed Gimli knew not if they woke or dreamed, their eyes open and fixed on one another as though in a silent conversation.

He stood for just a moment to watch them, mesmerized at the way nothing and everything seemed to pass between them—and marveling at how alike they seemed.  Like twins who had known each other for so long that they understood one another’s every thought.

Gimli had thought before knowing Legolas that falling in love was bound to be a jealous feeling – a possessive desire to be always with the one you loved, never to see that person with another.  And yet once he had come to know Legolas’s joyful, generous spirit – and to know the whisperings in his heart for love – how could he ever bear to restrain it?  Indeed, he looked down on Legolas with Eleniel now, and he found room in his heart only for tenderness – and for the wistful longing to protect them both from the parting he knew they dreaded.

He must have made some sound at the thought, for Legolas blinked, and then they both looked up at him.  “Gimli,” Legolas said, immediately contrite, rolling over and sitting up.  “I am sorry; I lost my sense of time.  Tell me you have not been lying awake!”

“No,” Gimli reassured him.  “I only just woke and wondered.  But do not get up on my account!  I would not impose between you two, not on this night.”  _Not on your last night together,_ he did not say, but they all heard.

“No, stay,” Eleniel agreed, her voice sleepy.  “I mean you as well, Gimli.  The moss is very soft here; you will not find it disagreeable, and we will keep you warm.”

Gimli hesitated, but Legolas was already nodding, rising eagerly to remove his cloak; without a word Eleniel unclasped her own and handed it over as well.  Legolas wrapped Gimli more snugly in the fur robe, then in the first cloak, and helped ease him down into the moss bed.  As Eleniel had promised, it was very soft even against his aching bones, and warm from the heat of their bodies.

“Will you be able to sleep thus?” Legolas asked – careful, solicitous, but Gimli could hear the note of hope in his voice.

“With you beside me, how could I ever want for comfort?” Gimli murmured in response.

“Sickening,” said Eleniel, “as always.”  But the usual laugh in her voice turned sad, and she adjusted her curled-up position to fit neatly around Gimli, warming his back, before helping to tug the last cloak over all of them as Legolas lay back down on Gimli’s other side.

“There,” said Legolas, his voice filled with the melancholy happiness Gimli had heard in it so oft of late.  “Now I may spend my last night on Middle-earth with my two dearest friends both by my side.”

Gimli felt a strange shudder run through Eleniel’s body, but she said nothing – only pressed closer to him and snaked a hand over his side.  Gimli felt Legolas do the same, until their hands interlaced once more above him, and he felt as snug and warm as they had promised, nestled deep into the circle of affection.

He had thought to spend his last night in Ithilien in his own bed.  But nowhere, he thought, as his thoughts melted into the blur of near-sleep and above him Legolas and Eleniel resumed their silent conversation, could he have found more comfort.

It was, all in all, the best way to say farewell to a home.


End file.
